TRAVESS SMALLEY

Travess Smalley is a NY-based artist who is mastering the .jpg and .gif file formats. Check out his beautiful swimming pool.

"Do you feel young?"

My idea of youth is bound with my identity as a student. Right now I see youth as an aspect of being in school where all my choices, indecisions, failures and successes are supported by an institutional safety net. So yes, right now I feel young.

MANDANA TOWHIDY

Mandana is a writer stylist visionaire editor idea generator metal fan novelist.
She says she is scared of people but actually makes friends in a few seconds. She likes high heels and shiny clothes, and doesn't ignore the elephant in the room.

"What is the best place on earth?"

The best place on earth is when I'm kicking back with good friends, real friends. And I'm doing so well, I have a stash of fillintheblank to share. Friends, and there's talking and hearing and being. Moments of nothing in between moments of great stories. But it doesn't even
matter if anyone is talking. Like, a warm night when it's 76 degrees F outside, on a patio overlooking a dark canyon with really good wine that doesn't give you a headache the next day. And something like Plastic Ono Band playing lightly behind the walls. And it's so good I forget what it feels like to be in my skin. Or maybe I forget I have skin. Which is the best for me. Because that's truth.

Like when we were sitting on those bleachers at that park in Sierra Madre, the sun was starting to go down. Just talking and staring at those puffy green mountains. They looked lilac and blue. The only thing missing was a doob. But then I would have never been able to drive you back in that rental.

I mean, I think those are the moments I live for.

DANIEL EATOCK

Daniel Eatock is a London based artist who is interested in connections between image and language, titles, punch lines, miscommunication, subversions, open systems, contributions from others, seriality, collections, discovery and inventing. Check out his No smoking sign library.

"What does the number 1 mean to you?"

1 is the number I would like on the side of my car if I was a race car driver, the position I would like in the pop charts if I was a musician, the country code I dial when talking to friends in America, the time I like to sleep, the number of questions I like to answer.

MARINA FOKIDIS

Marina Fokidis is a curator/writer/critic who thinks and talks fast and lives with the best view in Athens.

"do you work towards something?"

Towards hijacking cultural policies as the most valid ideological ground for new practices and models both outside and within the art market.

RICHARD ROSS

Richard Ross is a photographer who works on at least a million projects at once. He likes to confront stereotypes with his photos and bends rules whenever he can.

"Why do you live in Santa Barbara?"

I live in Santa Barbara so I can be close to the beach and walk Vito 2X a day according to the tides. Also close to an airport and Los Angeles.
Also far enough away from Los Angeles and New York, and close enough. And the beach. Did I mention the beach? And there is the climate, and the size where you can do things you want as a pedestrian, and did I mention the beach? And I walk the dog with Petra and Sydney and Cissy and Nick and Leela and Milo and Oliver and Vito and the beach.

MICHAEL BELL-SMITH

Michael Bell-Smith is one of the few artists who deeply explores animation. He controls every pixel of carefully chosen flatscreens to create new worlds that challenge old ones.

"What is your favorite moment in animation history?"

I've never been good at picking favorites, but I really like these three:

MAI UEDA

Mai Ueda is an all-round freethinker who makes songs, fashion, drawings, and domain name poetry. She always makes sure her outfits will catch your eye and travels more than anyone. She is one of the two people that form the pirates of the internet.

"Are you a pirate?"

I am a girl who got kidnapped by pirates.
I sing for them a song while I am with them, it is about piracy on Internet.
I think they are cool, and I wish I was strong like them.
I am waiting for Peter Pan to take me home.

JOEL HOLMBERG

Joel Holmberg is an American artist. He is one of the founders of Nasty Nets. He is arguably the chillest frau in all of Berlin.

"What is your favorite part of the day?"

I love falling asleep. I dread it all day but then when its happening its usually the sweetest thing. It brings great moments of insight that I cant wait to wake up and capture, if only I could find the time.

YACHT

Claire L. Evans & Jona Bechtold are two people who venture in music, art & business. As YACHT they make electronic music that feels unelectronic, spreading a message of kindness and positivity.

"Is life tough?"

Yeah, life is tough.

It doesn't have to be difficult physically, but life is tough psychically. There are glaringly obvious, tragic misunderstandings going on between people everywhere all the time, and there just aren't enough sane people to go around sorting it all out.

We had a realization recently: all the things which are doomed about humanity -- that we are territorial, prone to infighting, defensive, vulnerable, small-minded -- are the same things which cause problems in interpersonal relationships. There's no difference between the conflicts of individuals and those of the whole, other than scale. Our domestic arguments are rooted in the same human insecurities that cause wars. It's easy to be discouraged by this, and, to be honest, the only way to overcome it is to completely ignore it.

It's kind of like how when we saw The Matrix and didn't understand why you'd want to "wake up" in the first place. If your mind is content, self-sufficient, then why force your body into the unpleasantness of actual reality?

That's essentially the basis of our work.

TOBIAS BERNSTRUP

Tobias Bernstrup is a singer/artist who combines sex, violence and technology into his shiny performances. He is also half of the pirates of the internet.

"do you enjoy traveling?"

Yes, it makes me awake. I love sitting on trains, in cars, planes, boats or riding bicycles. But I am very bad at going for spontaneous trips.

KEVIN BEWERSDORF

Kevin Bewersdorf is an actor/artist/marketeer/philosopher who points most of his thoughts toward the world wide web. Please watch his video that summarizes his mission and check him in the movie LOL.

"What does the internet lack?"

The web minus the internet equals all that is lacking
and all that is lacking plus the internet equals the web.

The internet is made and therefore is not whole,
for the made lacks the maker.

The web is not made and therefore is one whole,
for the unmade is the maker.

YES INFObrother
YES every LoVeR
YES INFOsister
YES every HaTeR

The cup of the internet runneth over,
its contents greater than its container.

ANNE DE VRIES

Anne de Vries is a photographer who explores reality by slightly altering what we see.

"do you work enough?"

After real deep thinking about this question i came to the conclusion that i never really know exactly where this 'enough' point exactly is. And therefor i prefer to work a little bit too much to be sure i'm not working too little.

Once i stop often i don't want to go back to it. And i find myself coming up with a whole lot of mind tricks to get my self going back into it again..
Making lists, spraying glassex everywhere; cleaning, re-organizing the space, and in the worse case putting on very loud radiostaddenhaag can work. When i then finally get going again, i'll be soon prepairing myself for the next problem of not wanting to stop. So basically it is too little or too much which makes it exactly enough i guess.

GUTHRIE LONERGAN

Guthrie Lonergan is an artist who deals with "something very real struggling beneath a heavy and ancient structure of corporate software defaults and cultural banality". The painfully boring, mundane and embarrassing moments of internet.

"Do you like berlin?"

i've lived my whole life in LA so Europe was a complete culture shock for me -- a place with any kind of history seems automatically so nice, pretty... berlin was this way for me, too, even though i'd heard it compared to LA. It should be so obvious, but actually seeing a starbucks or a subway in europe, you can really feel its like a kind of cancer. i love fast food. my parents are from where McDonalds came from (San Bernadino, California) and eating fast food brings back all these memories of eating fries in cars with my grandma, stuff like that... joel took me to mcdonalds twice in berlin, and its much nicer than in the US... it looks nicer and you can even sort of taste the beef in the big macs (which was really, really strange.)

ROGER MCDONALD

Roger McDonald is a Japanese (not English any more) curator/writer living and working in Tokyo. He is a founding member of AIT, a group of dedicated curators who teach and organize residencies for foreign artist who want to discover Japan.

What will happen in 2012?

The Future will become Primitive. In other words, ideas of the future as something ahead of us in time, as a tablet onto which we project futures, will cease to be. This will most likely be because of significant technological or quantum mechanical discoveries, such as the laboratory
realization of time travel. This would effectively 'end' History understood as a rationally progressing linear journey from the past into the present and onto the future. It would be important to note that the discovery that subverts History emerges from the very tools which it created, namely scientific method. The 'ending' of History would therefore not be some apocalypse or catastrophe as depicted by Hollywood, but rather the effective subversion of our Modern ideas of Time. I say the Future will become Primitive in the sense that this situation will once again allow for multiple felt experiences of Time. The role of computers and the internet in
this will probably be very great. I imagine computers becoming ever smaller in size, as they incorporate nano-technologies. Computers will effectively become shamanic tools for ecstasy-seeking, to borrow the phrase of the shamanic scholar Mircea Eliade. We will perhaps swallow computers, like psilocybin mushrooms, and enter into labyrinthine webs of information, data
and shared experience. Instead of being the domain of a privileged few, the seeking of knowledge and ecstasy will be allowed for all through such technologies. The 'ending' of History as we know it, will also be a clarion call for systemic change across many levels from the way we conduct politics, organize societies, manage nature, as well as how we inhabit our minds and bodies.

CONSTANT DULLAART

Constant Dullaart makes simple and stupid things, he talks about contemporary anthropology, visualizing rhetorical devices etc etc.

I especially like thedisagreeinginternet.com

will you save the world?

yes

AIDS-3D

AIDS-3D is Daniel Keller and Nik Kosmas, two American artists creating installations and performances to remind us how cool it is to be in front of our computer. Check this beautiful flaming bluetooth sculpture.

Do you live by any rules?

AIDS-3D's CURRENT GUIDELINES:

- We have a generalized distrust of institutions and their conventions.
- We believe in the sharpest possible distinguishment of ones self.
- We believe that the digital revolution is still transforming humanity and that we must always be the vanguard of this revolution.
- We believe in a fluid and undefined sexuality based on the ability to virtually sublimate any desire online.
- We believe that drugs are cool but not as cool as we all wished they are.
- We believe in wearing thick wool socks in the summer as well as the winter.
- We believe in trying to eat a different style of ethnic food every day of the week. (this is a balanced diet)
- We believe in maintaining a fashionable silhouette at all times.
- We believe in a completely free worldwide market.
- We believe that intellectual property is problematic, but we also respect that profit remains the biggest incentive for new developments.
- We always vote for Democrats, but only because we're pragmatists.
- We believe that usually its best to only wear one pattern at a time.
- We are members of a dynamic international community.
- We are proud to be Americans because we invented black music, hollywood, public relations, and the internet!
- We believe there is no such thing as selling out as long you are still spreading your ideas.
- We believe that proactive ego-force can effect change on a global scale.
- We want to believe in Oprah's Secret.
- We believe in dancing.
- We don't share girls anymore.

Smoke weed every day

JAN ÅMAN

Jan Åman is a curator/writer/critic/activist running FargFabriken in Stockholm, an acclaimed exhibiton space and laboratory of new ideas, as well as founding the NewWorldBank, a database of ideas and solutions to change the world.

How much longer will we use the term "contemporary art"?

I guess in the old sense the term "contemporary art" is already long gone. It is of course still used by the traditional art museums, magazines and commercial galleries. But this only means that it is used to protect a territory that has already lost its meaning, relevance and energy. There is still money to be made on it for galleries. Customers want a guarantee that an image is contemporary art and not, say..., photography. For the museums the term has a Disney or Las Vegas effect. And this is the whole story. "Contemporary art" is like "French cuisine" or "rap music". The term will still be around as long as people can make a profit from it, which is OK, but the interesting stuff is made outside of this context, in relation to the net, to cities, to society, to fashion, to whatever... and does not need to be labeled.

CORY ARCANGEL

Cory Arcangel is an artist known world for hacking Nintendo games but has since shown he's interested in much more than that.

"Do you ever get tired of computers?"

It is impossible to get tired of computers these days. This is cause they are made to last only a few years. So once a user gets everything complied, configured, authorized, and running smoothly, the computer breaks and it is time to start all over again with a new one. It's never ending work.

ANGELO PLESSAS

Angelo Plessas is a unique artist making websites that are strange, nervous and poetic at the same time. He uses the internet to create portraits of people around him and many sides of himself.

"Do you believe in hard work?"

It's very random. Depends the way I wake up in the morning. Sometimes when I wake up I feel I am in a such productive and speedy mood that I go and work for 10 hours non-stop, but this does not work all the time. Some other times I get up in such a slow pace that nothing really feels will move ahead that day but out of the blue a miracle happen without even moving my little finger.

STEVEN SCHKOLNE

Steven Schkolne (Los Angeles) is an artist who manipulates images to show us how normal life can be. Also check out Schkolne Number.

"what is the one question i should ask you?"

"how tall are you?"